Its marmalade time!

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Well, later this week anyway. riverford have their 'marmalade kit' available which must mean seville oranges are here. Hooray!

Wax discs: not necessary IMHO - I never bother and have kept marmalade for 3 years, no probs

sterlising lids: no, I would think they were fine - I usually do as you describe, then dry them with a clean tea towel and put them in the oven on a plate to finish drying

Popping: yes, that final jar will not be sealed properly. Just store in fridge until you use it and it will be fine

:)

Thank you - That's what I felt but wanted some one more experienced to confirm. thanks

Can I just say...faff.

Hated doing it and we now have a million jars of Seville, grapefruit and lemon.

It tastes quite nice though.

Thrones, I had the same problem with my marmalade making today - I did get the thermometer to go above 'jam' but I couldn't get it to wrinkle. Will see if it worked in the morning. Have 14 jars made, and more to do tomorrow as ran out of jars tonight.

re testing for set. I don't use a thermometer, I use the saucer in the freezer technique. The saucer must be really cold ( I put a few in as I test loads! ) and you must leave the blob of marmalade for a minute before you try and push it.

And as you've discovered, it firms up a lot more once it cools, so I pull it off at the very first sign of a wrinkle as I like it quite light.

Otter - s'not a faff if you boil the oranges whole and then use a food processor. Takes less than a quarter of the time.

I think of all the things I make, marmalade is the best use of time, as the end product is so miles away from the over sweetened shop bought crap. I like a tang.

Is it really possible to freeze oranges before using them to make marmalade? Someone mentioned this a few posts back. I live overseas and have ridiculous quantities of oranges. Would definitely help if I could freeze some of them! Would I need to defrost them before making the marmalade?

Well done Thrones, mine was like marmalade soup this morning.

have spent all afternoon on a second batch and reboiling first batch.

fingers crossed.

next time will use a food processor. Think one mistake I made yesterday was the pan was very full so it couldn't boil up enough, so today split it into two batches.

We will see tomorrow!

Done, used the recipe that came on the bag of Seville oranges from coop, but added 1/4 brown sugar.
Dark and delicious.

Ok, so having made one successful batch and one batch which had to be re-boiled these are my observations:

Only fill pan maximum of 2/3rds full, might need to do 2 batches.

Temperature is not reliable indicator of setting point, you need to wait for the wrinkle first. keep several saucers in freezer as others suggested.

You need to take the pan off the heat when you are testing for setting.

Don't leave the thermometer in the pan all the time.

It's always going to take more than the 20 mins of boiling it says in the recipe.

If worried about set add a little extra lemon juice as it is rich in pectin.

I used demerara sugar for one batch, came out lovely and dark. Granulated sugar gives much lighter result.